Lucius Plotius Gallus

Lucius Plotius Gallus ( 92–56 BC) was a Roman teacher of classical rhetoric.

Plotius was born between about 120 and 115 BC. The cognomen Gallus suggests that he was from Cisalpine Gaul. Little is known of his life. He was a supporter of Gaius Marius and an opponent of the . He had opened a school of rhetoric in Rome by 92 BC, when the censors led by Lucius Licinius Crassus sought to close it. Suetonius, in his , records that he lived a very long time. In 56 BC, he wrote a speech for Atratinus' prosecution of Marcus Caelius Rufus.

The , written in the 80s, is generally taken as representative of his views. Quintilian, in his , considers Plotius the greatest of the early Roman rhetors. He laid special emphasis on gesticulation. He is the first listed rhetor in the list of Latin rhetors that appears before in most manuscripts. According to the medieval , he was the first to teach Latin rhetoric in Rome. On Plotius, Suetonius quotes Cicero from a lost letter to Marcus Titinius:

Marcus Caelius, however, mocked him as a "barley-bread rhetorician ... puffed, light and coarse."